A renegade photographer got inside this lawless Hong Kong community that was 119 times as dense as New York City

Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong was built by immigrants between the 1950s and 1990s.

It's a 12-story community on a 6.4-acre lot, overflowing with 33,000 people.

The city at its peak was 119 times as dense as present-day New York City.

Although its demolition began in 1993, in the late '80s, the Canadian photographer Greg Girard found his way into the windowless world.

Between the 1950s and mid-1990s, tens of thousands of immigrants constructed a towering community 12 stories high across a 6.4-acre lot in Hong Kong.

It was called the Kowloon Walled City.

With a population of 33,000 squeezed into a tiny lot, the city at its peak was 119 times as dense as present-day New York City. Although it faced rampant crime and poor sanitation, the city was impressively self-sustainable until its demolition began in 1993.

In the late '80s, the Canadian photographer Greg Girard found his way into the windowless world.

He shared photos and thoughts about his time in Kowloon Walled City with Business Insider. You can check out the rest, along with essays and work from the photographer Ian Lambot, in "City of Darkness: Revisited."

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Though Hong Kong had been under British rule for decades by the time construction began, a clause in an 1842 treaty meant China still owned the property that would become Kowloon. Caught in legal limbo, it was effectively lawless.

Bobby Yip/Reuters

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By 1986, the Walled City had caught the attention of the photographer Greg Girard. Girard would spend the next four years in and out of the city, capturing daily life inside its teetering walls.

The Lego-like city was built over decades as residents stacked rooms on top of one another. The end result "looked formidable," Girard told Business Insider, "but who knows?"

At night, the city's lawlessness became truly apparent. Crime was rampant, and anyone who knew better wouldn't trespass near the city's walls.

Greg Girard

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Even though the area wasn't terribly dangerous by the time Girard visited, he said local children were still told by their parents not to go near Kowloon.

Greg Girard

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Kowloon had just about every business imaginable, for better or worse. At night, schools and salons were converted into strip clubs and gambling halls. Trafficked drugs — mostly opium — made frequent appearances.

One woman, Wong Cheung Mi, worked as a dentist.

Like many of the Walled City's dentists, Wong could not practice anywhere else in Hong Kong. This type of arrangement drew hordes of working-class citizens to visit the city for affordable healthcare and services.

Stacked housing blocks meant virtually no sunlight could pierce through. Even during the day, Girard says, "it was nighttime all the time in there."

The one place of respite from the dampness was on the roof, though Girard said this was the most unsafe — "there were a lot of additional things sticking out and spaces between buildings that had been combined."